But there is, unhappily, another side to the picture.  This industrial life, otherwise so worthily cultivated, is disturbed by manifestations of religious bigotry which sadly tarnish the glory of the really heroic deeds they are intended to commemorate.  It is impossible for any close observer of these deplorable exhibitions to avoid the conclusion that the embers of the old fires are too often fanned by men who are actuated by motives, which, when not other than religious, are certainly based upon an unworthy conception of religion.  I am quite aware that it is only a small and decreasing minority of my co-religionists who are open to the charge of intolerance, and that the geographical limits of the July orgy are now strictly circumscribed.  But this bigotry is so notorious, as for instance in the exclusion of Roman Catholics from many responsible positions, that it unquestionably reacts most unfavourably upon the general relations between the two creeds throughout the whole of Ireland.  The existence of such a spirit of suspicion and hatred, from whatever motive it emanates, is bound to retard our progress as a people towards the development of a healthy and balanced national life.

Many causes have recently contributed to the unhappy continuance of sectarian animosities in Ireland.  The Ritualistic movement and the struggle over the Education Bill in England, the renewed controversy on the University Question in Ireland, instances of bigotry towards Protestants displayed by County, District, and Urban Councils in the three southern provinces of Ireland, the formation of the Catholic Association, the question of the form of the King’s oath, and, more remotely, the protest against clericalism in such Roman Catholic countries as France and Austria, have one and all helped to keep alive the flame of anti-Roman feeling among Irish Protestants.[16]

There are, happily, other influences now at work in a contrary direction.  Among the industrial leaders a better spirit prevails.  A well-known Ulster manufacturer told me recently that only a few years ago, when an applicant for employment appeared at certain Northern factories, which my friend named, the first question always put was, ‘Are you a Protestant or Roman Catholic?’ Now, he said, it is not what a man believes, but what he can do, which is considered when engaging workers.  And outside the cities there are most gratifying signs of better relations between the two creeds.  We are on the eve of the creation of a peasant proprietary, involving the rehabilitation of rural life, and one essential condition of the successful inauguration of the new agrarian order is the elimination of anything approaching to sectarian bitterness in communities which will require every advantage derivable from joint deliberation and common effort to enable them to hold their own against foreign competition.  I recall a trivial but significant incident in the course of my Irish work which left